Karolina BendrykTraditional DOOH is hitting a monetization ceiling within the open programmatic ecosystem. The root cause is the lack of signal layers and attribution infrastructure. Without them, screen owners cannot measure performance or attribute outcomes, leaving them unable to prove ROI — advertisers’ most critical metric in 2025 and beyond.
The solution requires an architectural evolution. It is the only way to fully control auction logic, access rules, and pricing control, enabling the transformation of raw physical impressions into valid, measurable outcomes.
The synchronisation disconnect
While traditional DOOH schedules ad delivery by time, it fails to adapt to real-time context. It estimates the audience based on geolocation data, but cannot confirm whether that audience is present now. In open auctions, demand-side decisioning is built around evaluating a bid request using standardized, machine-readable signals — who the impression is likely to reach right now, under what context, and with what expected outcome.
These limitations create information asymmetry in open auctions. DSP algorithms, built for precision, cannot evaluate bid requests lacking specific context and audience data. As a result, DSPs either refuse to bid or make low, defensive offers.
Moreover, screen owners relying on third-party SSPs frequently don’t have full control over the bidstream and auction logic. Without direct access, they cannot enrich bid requests with proprietary data or implement custom monetization strategies. As a result, there is no proper data synchronization between the seller and the buyer. Broadcasters cannot prove incremental lift, and buyers cannot verify value. This prevents buyers from paying premium rates and blocks broadcasters from scaling revenue.
How can programmatic decisioning solve this?
It transforms the screen from a static ad player into a controlled marketplace: the system decides who is allowed to bid, under what rules and minimum price, enriches the request with usable signals, and then runs the auction to award the slot to the best-priced qualified buyer.
To evaluate context and audience data, programmatic platforms aggregate data from different sources.
For context: The system monitors external API feeds for environmental changes — weather, traffic density, time of day, UV index — and selects ads accordingly. For example, if rain starts at the screen’s location and the temperature drops, the algorithm prioritizes products relevant to the moment — warm clothing, taxi services, or hot beverages.
For the audience: The technology creates audience profiles by mapping multiple signal sources. These include aggregated presence metrics (derived from cellular network density), contextual signals, modeled exposure (based on historical traffic patterns), and — where regulation permits — statistical samples of Mobile IDs captured via privacy-compliant partners (SDKs/DMPs). By collecting and analysing this anonymized data, the programmatic platform can infer intent and probabilistic audience affinity near the screen at that moment. It does not identify specific individuals; instead, it detects a high affinity index for specific groups (e.g., “retail affinity” or “business district segments”). The system then enriches the bid request with these segment IDs, signaling to DSPs that their target audience is available, thereby unlocking higher bids.
The result? These new data layers convert a physical impression into a digital signal. The system analyzes these signals to provide DSPs with detailed context and audience verification, allowing advertisers to measure performance with the same rigor as digital metrics.
The mechanics of transformation
The conversion of a physical impression into a digital signal occurs in five stages:
1. Attention
The first step is ensuring the viewer processes the message rather than just seeing the screen peripherally. DOOH performs strongly here. According to the 2025 study by Ocean Outdoor and Lumen Research, premium DOOH formats are 5.1x more effective than banner ads. Programmatic decisioning enhances this by displaying specific ads only when the audience is most receptive.
2. Signal
At this stage, physical attention is converted into a digital footprint. For this, programmatic platforms rely on the audience profiles described above. They analyse the volume of aggregated signals captured near the screen — their number represents the potential reach.
3. Action
The system monitors whether audience signals captured near the screen correlate with conversion events. The objective is to verify whether the impression led to the specific action required by the advertiser, such as a store visit or an online purchase.
4. Attribution
This stage determines the real impact of DOOH on ROI. The technology conducts an uplift study comparing an Exposed group (those present near the screen during ad play) with a Control group (an audience present near the screen when the ad was not displayed). If the conversion rate in the Exposed group is higher than in the Control group, this difference represents the incremental lift associated with DOOH exposure.
5. Revenue
When the system proves that ad spend generated a positive ROAS, the screen becomes a performance asset. This capability delivers greater value to the buyer and, consequently, higher revenue for the broadcaster.
How DOOH impressions transform into digital signals
This is where an owned SSP steps in
For the transformation chain described above to function as a unified mechanism, seamless control over dozens of services — data providers, analytics platforms, cameras, and CRM systems — is essential. This is where an owned SSP becomes the critical infrastructure.
An owned SSP is not merely a sales interface; it is the control plane for your entire digital operation. It aggregates data from disparate sources — weather APIs, DMPs, SDKs — and translates them into a unified language (OpenRTB) that the programmatic market understands.
Owning SSPs is also the only way to obtain higher attribution confidence. Why? It provides access to log-level data — the precise record of which Mobile ID was exposed to which ad, at what millisecond. Having such granular data for each ID, broadcasters can therefore conduct precise uplift studies to measure incremental lift. In contrast, third-party solutions typically provide aggregated summaries, allowing only predictions, not certainty. They also don’t grant direct access to the bidstream, leaving broadcasters dependent on their own agenda. Through a proprietary SSP, a screen owner controls the bidstream, enabling them to integrate with data partners and implement independent monetization strategies. This transforms them from passive partners into proactive market players.
In other words, an owned platform is not just another technological layer or nice-to-have feature. It is a necessary condition for those who want to monetize their screens to the fullest, operate with ease, and build an autonomous, stable business model.
DOOH potential: what's next?
DOOH holds a distinct competitive edge over digital formats. It does not need to track personal user data to be effective. It shows ads directly to humans — and never to bots.
However, for broadcasters, to fully benefit from this, simply owning screens is no longer enough. They need infrastructure, aggregated data, and an SSP to orchestrate these elements. An owned stack is not just a guarantee of strategic independence, but also your gateway to revenue scaling. Ultimately, only those who control the SSP can control the signal layers and attribution logic that unlock the DOOH’s true value.
When powered by programmatic technologies, DOOH potential skyrockets, enabling the combination of OOH ads’ broad reach with the precision of digital ads. This enables advertisers to utilize DOOH for lower-funnel performance goals, driving a fundamental shift in budgeting. For broadcasters, this is the opportunity to compete directly for budgets previously allocated to social media or the web, transforming their networks from passive ad displays to proactive revenue engines.
The potential of DOOH advertising has been defined, and now it’s up to publishers’ ability to pivot to technological stacks that allow them to get the most out of their screens. This transition relies on having the right decisioning infrastructure in place — that’s what we deliver. When you're ready to take control of your programmatic stack, let's talk.
